Another Score to Settle

So, part two of the "film score double-header" post I promised yesterday is a movie I recently watched, Score: A Film Music Documentary. It comes from Matt Schrader, an investigative journalist who here has turned his camera "behind the camera" to look at the composing of modern film music. Score is a tight 90 minutes, though a junkie like me could have welcomed twice as much material. Still, Schrader manages to cover a lot of material.

The documentary opens briefly on the important role of scores in the silent film era. Quickly though, its interviews transition from film historians to modern composers, getting them to talk about their heroes from earlier generations. Much deserved praise is given to Bernard Herrmann (the reason Alfred Hitchcock's movies pack the punch they do), Jerry Goldsmith (in particular, his unprecedented score for Planet of the Apes), and Alex North (who with his first score, for A Streetcar Named Desire, began a jazz-infused age of film music that would dominate for decades).

20 solid minutes in the heart of the movie are dedicated to the most revered film composer of them all, John Williams. (It's well deserved attention; though unfortunately, all footage of the man himself is archival.) The documentary visits most of his greatest achievements -- Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and Jurassic Park. There are interviews with modern composers who gush about his abilities, with a scientist who tries to explain the physiological effects the music has on the brain and body, with film historians who credit Williams with reviving a lost era, and more.

From there, the documentary dances through the decades, looking at composers who ushered in new eras of their own -- Danny Elfman (whose pop synth background reconstituted as a dark signature sound), Thomas Newman (with his quirky approach and mastery of the contemplative solo piano), Hans Zimmer (who began the age of the boisterous and brazen BWWWWAAAAAAA), and Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor (among the latest of many rock artists to cross over into film, bringing a haunting, untethered sound all their own).

Nearly every working film composer today that you could think to name shows up in the documentary at one point or another. (It's noticeably short on women and people of color, though those demographics are notably underrepresented in the field.) The composers talk about all aspects of the process -- the raw exploration phase, finding obscure instruments and inventing new ones, orchestration, the recording process (and conducting), and even the post-production mixing. Brian Tyler, composer of Avengers: Age of Ultron, even takes the process one step farther, going to a theater to watch an audience react to his work in the hopes that it will give him guidance on his next effort.

Though there is plenty here to like, the fact that the movie takes such a wide view does mean a lot is left out. I'd prefer a deeper dive, as my gushing review of the Settling the Score podcast surely made clear. Perhaps a multi-part mini-series, aired on some streaming service, would have scratched the itch this documentary leaves me feeling. It's good -- at least for people into film scores -- but falls short of "great."

I'd give a B to Score: A Film Music Documentary. I'm glad I made the time for it. I just wish I'd had to make more.